Nateabels@aol.com

Statement for “Recurring Dreams” at Rule Gallery, November 2022:

When I was a child in Indiana, they found a mammoth skeleton while excavating a pond in a suburban housing development. That discovery has crept into my artwork in several ways over the years. For a time, I made drawings and paintings depicting housing developments and expansions in the growing Denver area. More recently, my interest has turned to mammoths. It has been proposed that genetically engineering a “cold-weather-elephant” or “de-extinction” of the mammoth could allow that animal to once again roam Siberia. The resurrected megafauna would then graze on small plants, prevent tree growth, and blanket Siberia with enough snow to reflect the sun and reduce global temperatures. Can we undo climate changes by resurrecting extinct plants and animals? Can bio-tech and geo-engineering negate the detrimental effects we’ve had on the natural world? The cyclical themes inherent to this proposal interest me greatly. The artworks made for “Recurring Dreams” address our natural tendency to want to atone for past environmental wrongs. A lot of people today put their faith in a technological solution. Pre-historical people commemorated the mythical passage from “chaos to cosmos” - unformed to formed – along with the cycles of the seasons. Each year was witness to world’s restoration in the form of a new spring or a new moon. Regeneration of the earth was an annual reminder of the act of creation. The timelessness inherent in these worldviews is appealing to me in an age when I frequently find myself reading about all that is disappearing on this planet. The current works are an elegy, but equally, they are about the potential of re-creation.

Bio:

Nathan Abels in an artist who makes work around themes of deep time, our relationship to technology, what can be considered progress, and the natural world as seen through man-made filters. Past, present and imagery anticipating the future tend to mix-up timelines in his shows – with works referencing the paleolithic, medieval painting and Mars exploration. His works frequently emphasize subtle, often atmospheric elements of the landscape. Nathan received his MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005 and currently lives and works in the Colorado foothills. Early in his art career in Denver, the Denver Post named him the “Emerging Artist of the Year” for 2009 and one of the “12 Best Colorado Artists 35 and Under” in 2011. Since that time, he has had exhibitions at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (2018), The Littleton Museum (2019) and a solo show with Rule Gallery in Marfa, Texas. In 2022 he will have solo exhibitions at Whitelight Contemporary in Santa Fe, NM and Rule Gallery in Denver, CO.